Research Publications (Food Safety)

Clostridium perfringens produces diverse virulent toxins that cause necrotic enteritis in poultry, resulting in a great negative impact on the poultry industry. To study the characteristics of C. perfringens in chickens, we isolated 88 strains from chickens (1 strain per flock) with necrotic enteritis. The isolated bacterial strains were screened for toxin type and antimicrobial susceptibility.

Kareem Rashid Rumah, Yinghua Ma, Jennifer R. Linden, Myat Lin Oo, Josef Anrather, Nicole Schaeren-Wiemers, Miguel A. Alonso, Vincent A. Fischetti, Mark S. McClain, Timothy Vartanian

The antimicrobial activity of essential oils on Clostridium perfringens type A and the influence of such oils on mortadella quality were assessed. The anticlostridial effects of several essential oils and their combinations were identified and some essential oils and their combinations were selected for further study in mortadellas supplemented with 75 ppm sodium nitrite and inoculated with C. perfringens.

The anaerobic bacterium Clostridium perfringens expresses multiple toxins that promote disease development in both humans and animals. One such toxin is perfringolysin O (PFO, classically referred to as θ toxin), a pore-forming cholesterol-dependent cytolysin (CDC). PFO is secreted as a water-soluble monomer that recognizes and binds membranes via cholesterol.

King, Amanda M. et al. Organic acids and sodium nitrite have long been shown to provide antimicrobial activity during chilling of cured meat products. However, neither purified organic acids nor NaNO2 is permitted in products labeled natural and both are generally avoided in clean-label formulations; efficacy of their replacement is not well understood.

In the Mediterranean areasalted and dried roe from the gray Mugil cephalus “bottarga” represent a speciality food with great commercial value. Bottarga is currently produced by a traditional handmade process and, the risk of human bacterial contamination during its manufacturing is still unknown; in this perspective the foodborne pathogen Staphylococcus aureus could potentially contaminate this product due to poor sanitation or bad handling during processing.

Publication date: September 2015
, Volume 50
Author(s): Saeed Banawas , George Korza , Daniel Paredes-Sabja , Yunfeng Li , Bing Hao , Peter Setlow , Mahfuzur R. Sarker

Publication date: 3 August 2015
, Volume 206
Author(s): Evelyn , Filipa V.M. Silva

Teruhisa Takagishi, Masataka Oda, Michiko Kabura, Mie Kurosawa, Kaori Tominaga, Shiori Urano, Yoshibumi Ueda, Keiko Kobayashi, Toshihide Kobayashi, Jun Sakurai, Yutaka Terao, Masahiro Nagahama

The use of a yeast cell wall extract derived from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Actigen®) has been proposed as an alternative to in-feed antibiotics. This experiment was conducted to investigate the efficacy of yeast cell extract as an alternative to zinc bacitracin or salinomycin using a necrotic enteritis challenge model. A feeding study was conducted using 480-day-old male Ross 308 chicks assigned to 48 floor pens. A 2 x 4 factorial arrangement of treatments was employed.

Publication date: June 2015
, Volume 48
Author(s): Maryam Alnoman , Pathima Udompijitkul , Daniel Paredes-Sabja , Mahfuzur R. Sarker

Publication date: 16 February 2015
, Volume 195
Author(s): Lihan Huang

Publication date: 2 March 2015
, Volume 196
Author(s): Marie-Josée J. Mangen , Martijn Bouwknegt , Ingrid H.M. Friesema , Juanita A. Haagsma , Laetitia M. Kortbeek , Luqman Tariq , Margaret Wilson , Wilfrid van Pelt , Arie H. Havelaar

The anaerobic pathogen Clostridium perfringens encodes either toxin genes or antibiotic resistance determinants on a unique family of conjugative plasmids that have a novel conjugation region, the tcp locus. Studies on the paradigm conjugative plasmid from C. perfringens, the 47-kb tetracycline resistance plasmid pCW3, have identified several tcp-encoded proteins that are involved in conjugative transfer and form part of the transfer apparatus.

A modification of the UK reference and ISO 14189 TSCA medium for the enumeration of Clostridium perfringens from water coupled with a membrane filter transfer technique for testing for production of acid phosphatase was evaluated. The new tryptose cycloserine agar (TCA) medium, which lacks sodium metabisulphite but contains sodium pyruvate to improve recovery, allows the isolation and confirmation of Cl. perfringens within 18–24 h of sample processing.